


Tentacles and Laser Eyes

by toli-a (togina)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, M/M, WWII
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-08-07 19:33:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7727002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togina/pseuds/toli-a
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve's new body was perfect. It was <em>new</em>. He shouldn't have missed the scars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tentacles and Laser Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> jainamac prompted: I would love to see your take on Bucky adjusting to Steve's new body after the rescue. I feel like sometimes it gets skipped over just how insane that must be for Bucky to get used to.
> 
> Which is just the sort of prompt I love, because: They both have to adjust, because Steve’s personality might be more or less the same, but his body (and his attitude, backed up by the body) is different, and Bucky is … far more different than Steve really wants to think about, some days (ever).

“I’m fine.” Bucky’s lips were chapped, blood filling the cracks that appeared when he curled them in a poor imitation of a smile.

Mr. Barnes always said that his son smiled like a snake oil salesman, gave Steve a fatherly - a  _ solid _ \- clap on his shoulder and warned him never to buy a damn thing that James sold. In fifth grade, Becky’s class went to the zoo, and she swore that her brother looked just like a shark, with his big, stupid nose and too many teeth, just waiting to chew the hand off a nice, unsuspecting girl. Bucky had snapped at her, chased her down the block and threatened to sink his too many teeth into the Oreo she’d refused to share.

Steve had laughed, then, but he knew what the Barneses meant. Bucky’s teeth glinted when he smiled, head cocked and gaze sharp; no matter if he was promising Steve an unforgettable night or facing another bully in a neighborhood brawl, mouth bloody and lips pulled back in a grin that matched the thrumming under Steve’s skin.

Bucky smiled now without showing any teeth, cut his gaze away when Steve tried to meet his eyes, even though there was nothing to see over their shoulders but tired men and Italian trees.

“Buck,” Steve started, then trailed off when he couldn’t think of what to say. He’d already used “Are you okay?”, “I missed you,” and “Are you sure you don’t need…” in the first three hours of the march toward Allied ground. He’d tried to wrap an arm around Bucky’s shoulders — could do that for the first time since they were five, finally taller than his strapping best friend — and Bucky had shifted away, in such a hurry to move that he nearly twisted his ankle when he stepped in a hole.

“I’m gonna check on the circus,” Bucky said, interrupting the sentence still half-formed on Steve’s tongue. He moved away as soon as he bit out the words, melted into the ranks of men clustered behind Captain America, gone before Steve could say a goddamn word.

Steve hadn’t thought about what it would be like to rescue Bucky — hadn’t thought at all, after hearing Phillips, beyond the nausea rocking in his gut,  _ he’ll be all right he’s all right he’s all right  _ pounding through the pulse at his throat and trapped in his aching lungs. If he had thought about it, though, it would have looked like a thousand moments he’d lived before, one boy backed into a corner and losing a fight, the other sweeping in with a feral grin to save the day.

He turned to follow Bucky - though he wasn’t sure where to go looking for the circus - but his friend was already weaving back to the front of their straggling line, his gait easy and the Tommy gun cradled comfortably in his hands. Steve’s freshly perfected eyesight meant he could see the furrow between Bucky’s brows when he looked at Steve, the way his best friend seemed to be cataloguing the line of Steve’s leather jacket for flaws.

“Thought you’d run off to join the circus,” he said, once he’d fallen back a few steps and could march with Bucky at his side.

“Couldn’t leave the strongman behind,” Bucky teased, peering  _ up  _ at Steve, but he didn’t smile.

* * *

“Did you think I’d have tentacles?” Steve finally asked, five minutes after he’d walked into the tent. Bucky had been leaning against one canvas wall, watching silently as Steve had stripped off his singed and reeking clothes, had debated a shower before using his canteen water and some soap to scrub at his armpits and balls. In five minutes, he didn’t think Bucky had blinked once.

“I’d hoped,” Bucky replied, several seconds after the silence had grown teeth, his jaw clenched too tightly for the smirk he stretched across bloodless lips. This was a smile Steve had never seen. “Or at least a way to shoot death rays out of your eyes.”

“Maybe I can,” Steve bluffed, keeping his voice light and easy, because Bucky was edging closer to him but shuffling his feet, like a stray dog deciding whether to lunge forward or run away. “I’m just waiting for the right moment to use ‘em, is all.”

He fought the urge to cup a protective hand over his exposed groin, or fold his arms over the chest Bucky was eyeing with a frown. Bucky had used his sleeve to wipe Steve’s nose the week after they’d met. Steve had spat on all Bucky’s skinned knees; he had slept over at the Barneses’ and then shared a tub with Bucky when one of them had wet the bed (though they never were quite sure who). Bucky knew every inch of Steve’s brittle, crooked body, and Steve wasn’t going to start hiding from him now.

“The asthma’s gone, too?” Bucky said flatly, and it wasn’t a question. He reached one hand out, running over the smooth skin of Steve’s new bicep. Steve closed his eyes and nodded, not sure if he was responding to Bucky’s words or to something else, to the press of fingers into unblemished skin. He was looking for the scar from the fight with the McClellan cousins, Steve knew, a fence post that had caught Steve’s skinny arm when they were twelve. He wouldn’t find it - Steve had searched for all his scars, the first night, scratched them in charcoal across his new, unblemished skin.

“And the ringing in your ear?” Bucky’s other hand pressed against Steve’s forearm, where no one who met him now would know that there should have been a swath of pink, hairless skin where he had fainted onto the stove and gotten burned. Bucky had pulled him away, then, had hauled him onto the trolley and across town so that Mrs. Rogers could cover Steve in gauze and motherly concern.

Steve shook his head, answering the questions digging their fingertips into his skin and not the ones Bucky had said aloud. “They’re all gone,” he said, and had to swallow hard to manage the words. “The serum –”

“Yeah,” Bucky interrupted, pursing his lips and jerking his head to stare at the ground. “I can see that.”

“I’m healthy now,” Steve whispered, and he felt like a snake oil salesman promising the cure for all ills, promising wealth and fame and the world’s most beautiful girls all in a bottle or two. Promising to make Bucky smile, because he would have promised  _ anything _ , would burn the scar back onto his skin. “Buck, I’m – it’s  _ good _ .”

Bucky sighed, the air brushing over Steve’s newly sensitive flesh. He shook his head again, a horse trying to dislodge a fly, and breathed hard out of his nose before cocking his head and meeting Steve’s eyes. “It’s good,” he agreed, and Steve dragged him into an embrace. He buried his face in Bucky’s neck, because he didn’t want to know if Bucky’s strange new smile would reach his eyes.


End file.
